How not to elect a sen­a­tor

Thanks to Daniel Squadron’s ter­ri­bly timed quit­ting of his Man­hat­tan/Brook­lyn state Senate seat af­ter the dead­line for an open com­pet­i­tive pri­mary, Demo­cratic Party in­sid­ers will on Sun­day pick their nom­i­nee for the Nov. 7 bal­lot, guar­an­tee­ing that man or woman a vic­tory. Brook­lyn Demo­cratic boss Frank Sed­dio has sug­gested pick­ing a com­pe­tent place­holder who’d agree to step down next year, al­low­ing a true open-seat elec­tion in just one year’s time. Sed­dio is no fan of demo­cratic com­pe­ti­tion; it’s just that Man­hat­tan in­sid­ers have twice as much say as his county’s in­sid­ers do.

Even still, it’s a good idea. We can’t be­lieve we’re say­ing this, but: Lis­ten to Sed­dio.